Summary

Introduction – “Higher Ground.” The author (Bryan Stevenson) begins by describing the circumstances of his first visit to a condemned person - how he came to choose law as a profession as a result of uncertainty about career choices; how he came to find a connection between his personal sense of social and legal justice and a particular branch of the law (i.e. defense / prisoner advocacy). Stevenson also describes how he was inspired by an early mentor, who taught him that “… capital punishment means ‘them without the capital get the punishment.’”

Stevenson then describes that first meeting with a death-row inmate named Henry (whose crime and guilt are never discussed in Stevenson’s narration) with whom Stevenson bonds and who, at the conclusion of a meeting that ran three times as long as scheduled, sang a hymn while being shackled that referred to traveling...